Dragon Quest X fails to crack top five during debut week in Japan

Square Enix is in the middle of a shake-up – what with a new CEO and lay-offs in Los Angeles, and now comes word that Dragon Quest X on Wii U didn’t fare to well during its debut week.

The latest Media Create figures show it moved 33,302 units and came in at number seven during its debut week. Quite a small figure for a bankable title.

While Famitsu’s figures showed a slightly better number on its chart, 36,454, it still didn’t sell what one would expect of a Dragon Quest title.

Square had the same issue with the Wii version of the title, which also fell way below other entries in the series by moving only 420,000 during its debut week.

In comparison, Dragon Quest 9 moved 2,353,440 units on DS its first week, and Dragon Quest 8 moved 2,237,000 units.

While it’s unknown if switching things up and making the title an MMORPG has anything to do with it, because it could be brand fatigue, or any other number of reasons – such as competing with Fate/Extra CCC, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – it still should have moved more units.

Hopefully next week’s retail sales out of Japan will tell a different story.